With the festive season upon us, many UK consumers see this holiday period
as the right time to spend quality time – and money – on family and
friends. Although many shoppers budget their spending for Christmas, it can
also end up as the time of the year when many people overspend to ensure
they have the perfect festive outfit or present.
UK consumers are set to spend nearly 40 percent of their disposable income
on Christmas this year, according to Ferratum Group’s annual Christmas
Barometer, which found that UK shoppers are far more generous than their
European counter-parts with 23 percent. In addition, the Christmas
Barometer stressed that UK households are finding it difficult to maintain
this level of Christmas spend in 2015, with December set to be one of the most expensive festive periods to date.
This pressure to overspend can lead to many UK consumers putting their
Christmas on credit, using overdrafts, credit cards and pay day loans to
stretch their budgets to the maximum. In order to work how much an average
UK consumer will be spending this Christmas and where they will be spending
it, PayPlan, the country’s largest provider of free debt solutions created
the following infographic:
The infographic encourages UK consumers to rethink their financial position
before the festive period and to try and curb their spendings where they
can. PayPlan stresses that with a reported 796 pounds spent on average per
household, it is important to remember that 1 out of 10 people in the UK
were still paying off their 2013 Christmas debts a year later during
December 2014.
Infographic credit: